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Hills Like White Elephants Manipulation

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Familial roles play a large part in making a family work. If one person does not participate well, the entire relationship can shut down. Ernest Hemingway and O’Connor utilize dysfunctional family roles to indicate the hardships a family can go through during their specific time. Although O’Connor’s takes place in the twenties and Hemingway in the fifties, American disillusion is present in all time periods. The main characters are driven by their self-interests rather than the interests of others. “Hills Like White Elephants” demonstrates how in the situation of an unplanned pregnancy, the man takes on the selfish role of a bystander while the woman takes on a stronger more aggressive role in deciding how to approach the idea of an abortion. …show more content…

The grandmother in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” uses manipulation on her family which ultimately leads to their tragedy. She manipulated the entire trip and made it exactly how she wanted, but one mistake led to a car accident and a gruesome murder. In “Hills Like White Elephants” the man uses manipulation of disinterest to attempt to convince the woman to get an abortion. He repeatedly attempts to convince the woman that they can’t be happy unless she goes through with an abortion; this is not necessarily true. The conversation proceeds, “I’ll go with you and I’ll stay with you all the time. They just let the air in and then it’s all perfectly natural.” “Then what will we do afterward?” “We’ll be fine afterward. Just like we were before” “What makes you think so?” “That’s the only thing that bothers me. It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy” (121). The man’s constant thought of an abortion being the only solution towards being happy proves that the relationship is not as strong as they thought. He believes he can convince her by holding their relationship hostage, but the woman is smart enough to know that she will be much happier keeping the baby rather than dumping it. During the twenties, women did not have the option to express themselves or make decisions (history.com). So, this woman made a bold choice to make the decision. She fought through her husband’s manipulations and took on a new role in their relationship, a strong, independent

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In the short story “Hills Like White Elephants,” by Ernest Hemingway, there is a relationship unfolding, a complex relationship difficult to understand. The relationship is revealed by a conversation between a man and a woman, a topic of conversation that people rarely discussed in the period that the story was set. After researching interpretations, it is consistently said “She is pregnant, and he wants her to have an abortion” (Weeks 76), to which I agree that this conversation is about abortion. With the man seemingly pushing the topic and the girl hesitant and questionable, it is unsure as to the result of their conversation. However, it is my belief that she chose to follow her heart and not get the abortion.

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The main character within the story “ Hills Like White Elephants” is Jig. Jig is bothered with her own thoughts because she is trying to ease her conscience. She struggles to accomplish this so she is unknowingly using her conscious and subconscious to process the difficult decision of whether she should go through with abortion. She is constantly debating the thought of abortion throughout the story When in reality, she knows that she is going to have the abortion, but she expresses the complete opposite feeling externally.

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The short story “Hills Like White Elephants,” by Ernest Hemingway, is about a young couple and the polemic (controversial) issue of abortion. Though the word “abortion” is nowhere in the story, it is doubtlessly understood through Hemingway’s powerful use of two literary elements: setting and symbolism. From the first paragraph the setting immediately introduces the tense atmosphere that will surround the rest of the story. The story takes place in Spain in the late 1920’s. The setting is described as follows:

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Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants" and David Foster Wallace’s “Good People,” are respected, yet controversial text within American literature. In Both works they confront the hard-hitting reality of how couples face the struggles of an unwanted pregnancy when it occurs. These stories deal with realism at their cores but deal with them in their very own ways. Both stories share similarities and differences with each other and it’s all based on the authors Ernest Hemingway and David Foster Wallace views on these themes as well as their relationship.

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To give one example of manipulation, Flannery O'Connor, Georgia State author of "A Good Man Is Hard to Find", writes that "You wouldn't shoot a lady, would you?"(421). The grandmother is trying to make the misfit vulnerable, even though he has already killed everyone but her. She's begging the misfit for her life. Every one of those people would still be alive if it was not for the grandmother. She did not have much hope left anyways for her life because she annoyed the misfit with her ugly and selfish ways.

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“Hills like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway” is about a young couple with very bad communication skills debating over a problematic issue or decision for abortion. The main focus is of this big decision that Jig has to make. In the conversation readers can see that the two individuals are on the edge in their relationship. The communication between the two is very one sided and argumentative with little to no progress. The narrator demonstrates the emotional emptiness between the two characters while a threat of a decision intervenes on their relationship affecting how it will change and what the future will hold for them.

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Dalton Dornburg Ms. Billo English 1302 22 March 2018 Literary Analysis Research Paper: Hills like White Elephants The short story "Hills Like White Elephants," by Ernest Hemingway, is about a young couple and the issue of abortion. However, since the word "abortion” is found nowhere is the story, it is mainly understood through Hemingway's use of literacy elements such as setting and symbolism. This story takes place in a very short period of time, but yet tell a tale that is much bigger than face value. The woman is named Jig, where the man is known simply as "The American."

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In the short story “Hills like White Elephants” the male character involves himself in a conversation with the female character about what seems to be whether or not to have a baby. Throughout the process of listening to the conversation as a reader this decision becomes more and more obvious that is is about having a baby even though neither of the characters ever says just that. We can infer through the dialogue between the two characters that they are talking about having a child. Much like Bobby from “Five Easy Pieces” the male character from the short story, reveals his thoughts in a more submissive

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The man is constantly pushing her into having the abortion and it seems he does not care about how she feels. But, in his mind if she has the operation he thinks that everything will go back to normal. Her happiness seems not to be important to him; it seems he does not care about what she wants. But, why have an abortion? He has so many other options to choose from, but he’s telling her to have an abortion.

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Ernest Hemingway was an influential American novelist and short story writer in the 20th-century. Best known for his works such as The Sun Also Rises and The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway used his past experiences in the war and his influential status to become a well renowned writer who emphasized what Gertrude Stein would later coin “The Lost Generation”. In his short story, “Hills Like White Elephants”, Hemingway uses a young couple to address the issue of abortion in the late 1920’s. Through his use of setting and symbolism, Hemmingway is able to indirectly speak of the conflicts surrounding the topic of abortion in the late 1920’s.

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Known to be a minimalist writer and a master of dialogue (Cliffnotes), Ernest Hemmingway wrote many short stories, among them is “Hills like White Elephants”. The short story is simply a conversation been a man and a woman in a bar at a train station, but, Hemmingway’s unique writing style creates an opportunity for the reader to ‘read between the lines’ in order to fully understand the purpose of the story. Timothy D. O’Brein’s feministic analysis successfully studies the theme of nature vs. man-made which contributes to the greater understanding of the conflict in the story. “Hill like White Elephants” is a story of a woman (nature) fighting against the power of man (artificial).

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1098 Words | 5 Pages

Hills Like White Elephant is a short story by Earnest Hemingway from 1927. The story is talking about a failing relationship between an American man and his girlfriend. This couple is at a critical point on their lives. At the bar in a train station in Spain, the girl, Jig, does not want to end up her pregnancy, but she is going to sacrifice the baby to satisfied him. Because he is critical of the exploitation of his girl’s feelings concerning the continuation of unbalanced relationship.

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“Hills Like White Elephants,” written by Ernest Hemingway is a story that must be read between the lines to understand. I had to read this story a few times before truly understanding the meaning. One thing that I noticed about this story that made it very unique was point of views of each characters. As a reader, I could understand that both characters had their different point of views, yet neither of them took the time to understand each others. The things these two characters are not openly discussing is abortion.

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You see, selfishness is the reason behind the misery of others. When it comes to humans, we do not always think that the price of our selfishness can cause the people around us into misery. We humans like to put ourselves first, and plenty of us do not think about the consequences of putting ourselves first. In “Hills Like White Elephants” the price of the couple selfishness comes with consequences losing a life they created together. This young couple is not ready to give up their freedom, or their relationship, if you looked from the woman’s point of view.

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1086 Words | 5 Pages

One side of the tracks has hills that Jig refers to as “white elephants” and where the land is “brown and dry” (Hemingway 123). On the other side of the tracks lies “fields of grain and trees along the banks of the Ebro” and “beyond the river, were mountains” (Hemingway 125). These two sides refer to the two choices the couple has to choose from. The side with the hills that are described as looking like “white elephants” is undoubtedly the side that represents the American's view of the pregnancy and the decision he wishes to make, which is to have an abortion. White elephants are “a metaphor for an expensive and burdensome property” (Link 67), which in this case would be the child.

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